


The Last Days of Gérard Lacroix

by Moonsheen



Series: Tin Soldiers [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Art History, Conspiracy, Extreme French-ness, F/M, French Robot Secret Agent, Gen, Omnic Gérard, Pre-Canon, Robot/Human Relationships, Speculation, Spies & Secret Agents, Villain Origin, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-11 05:30:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7878379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Gérard Lacroix had been an omnic? What if Amélie Lacroix had been more than a housewife? What if Gabriel Reyes had been onto something, when he suspected something rotten in Overwatch's core...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fraternité

Gabriel Reyes met Gérard Lacroix at the Louvre. He hated the museum’s lines and the crowds almost as much as he hated the French metro system, but Gérard insisted it was the safest place for them to meet. He always insisted on the museum.

Reyes took a brochure off of the visitor’s kiosk under the glass pyramid. He found Gérard in the painting galleries, admiring his favorite 19th century painting. The omnic stood with his arms folded in front of him, one metal hand cupping his chin in a particularly picturesque show of interest. He wore a blue suit, accented by several gold and orange scarves around his connectors. He looked for all the world like a curious visitor. Reyes gave his brochure a perfunctory check, sauntered up to him, and pretended he’d never seen this painting before in his life.

“This isn’t really subtle, Gérard,” muttered Reyes, watching the omnic out of the corner of his eye. “Anyone tell you you’re a little memorable?”

Gérard snapped alive at the sound of his voice. He didn’t turn his head to look at Reyes, but from the flick of his ancillary sensors, Reyes knew he’d glanced his way -- if briefly.

“That very well may be,” murmured the omnic, in a fluting voice, “but this is Paris, and I am a regular. You see, how little regard I am given? I am nothing more than an eccentric lover of art. You needn’t pay me more mind than that.”

Gérard wasn’t wrong. From the tired, blank look of the guard seated in the corner, Gérard had been there many times before, enough that no one really saw him anymore, even with the bright scarves and dandy suits.

“That’d be nice, but you called me,” said Reyes. He looked back at the painting. “This one again, huh.”

“It cannot be helped,” said Gérard, who shrugged with particular aplomb. He loved exercising the extra joints in his arms. “It is my favorite work by my favorite artist. It looks more beautiful each time I see it.”

“How many times is that now?” Actually, Reyes didn’t care, but Gérard had his thing about this.  Most omnics did.

“Why, nearly every week for the last twenty-five years,” said Gérard, with genuine delight. “I suppose to you this must seem very boring, but today I am looking at the  _ underpainting _ . It is something else, to see what the artist laid down before it became what it is now. Such a beautiful mess. Hard to believe it should come together into such a perfect work?”

Reyes observed the painting with some thought. Since he was human, he could only see the finished work.

“That’s not subtle, either,” he said finally.

“It does not have to be,” said Gérard, gesturing grandly. This, too, didn’t alarm the guard at all. He really was a mainstay in these galleries. “It is the feeling that it evokes that matters. Such freedom. Such defiance. When I first saw this painting I felt something like both of those things for the very first time in my existence.  It is because of that, we can be friends, and not enemies.  I owe much to a lack of subtlety.”

Reyes checked the wall label.  Liberty Leading the People.

Eugene Delacroix.

“Right,” he said, trying not to roll his eyes too visibly. “Ever think you’re in the wrong line of work?”

“Not a day of my life, Gabriel,” said Gérard. “I have looked into that thing we discussed.”

Reyes looked back at his brochure and tried not to straighten too obviously. Now they were talking.

“Yeah?” he said, trying not to sound too eager about it.

He didn’t need to worry, Gérard gestured with so much purposeful animation that to anyone he was still going on about the damn painting. “It is not as though you have asked about the thing that has been my life this past year. It is as you suspected, of course. Twelve multinational companies. Each publicly listed. Each of them with a great host of corporate donation to a respectable amount of charities. Each of those charities perfectly accountable. Save one. Have you ever heard of the Lijang Foundation?”

“Nope,” said Reyes.

“Neither had I,” said Gérard, “and neither has anyone else, it seems. I cannot find this organization’s main base of operations at all! Its website is quite polished. It is a non-profit construction company interested in low-income housing. The site and mission statement would have you believe it has made great steps in providing relief in the troubled post-Crisis zones, but when I checked those places, I have found, in this order: a burnt-out farm, a half-finished school, and a set of public restrooms. Not so very enterprising, for an organization that receives one-point-two million dollars a year in total donations from those twelve companies. Not a huge sum, I’ll grant you, but enough to wonder where it all goes, hm?”

“So the money’s walking.” Reyes sighed. “Doesn’t tell us much. It could just be your typical laundering scheme. You check the execs?”

“I would not have asked you here if I hadn’t,” said Gérard. “Their profile photos are on the site. Actors! All of them! Not a single name to match a face, and none of those names have any documentable life before their time with this organization. And besides that peculiarity, do you know what I found in the same place that I found those public restrooms?”

“A load of shit?”

“A load, indeed,” said Gérard. “So much shit. The sort of shit that made the local headlines, if not the global ones. I’m sure you know exactly of which I speak, Gabriel.”

Reyes did. He was part of the reason those headlines didn’t make it global. Talon was a terrorist organization with deep pockets and cutting edge technology. Keeping them from getting a more worldwide audience was one of Overwatch’s more taxing duties. When Overwatch wasn’t arguing with the UN over how to do it, anyway.

“You better have more than that,” said Reyes, scowling. “I’ll need it. I can’t act without Morrison’s approval, and you know what a tight leash the UN keeps on  _ him  _ nowadays. Give me something they can’t argue out of me.”

“I may be able to do that,” said Gérard. He rolled a cigarette consideringly. At this, the guard did spring alive, bearing down on them with a great deal of reddened concern. 

“No, no, not here--”

“Oh, do not be troubled, my friend,” said Gérard, tipping the cigarette so that the guard could see he was blowing steam through it, not real smoke. “It is not real. I have no lungs!”

“Nevertheless!” huffed the guard. After some huffing and fussing the cigarette was surrendered to the guard, and Gérard duly slipped a flash drive into Reyes’ coat pocket as he leaned forward to relinquish it.

“The names of our charitable friends are, of course, a matter of public record,” said Gérard, once things had settled. Those companies exact expense reports were less public. Reyes had a feeling he’d be finding out a lot about those soon. He slid his brochure into his coat pocket, and heard the faint ‘tink’ as it brushed up against the drive. “In fact, the Halcyon Group will be holding a corporate benefit in the next couple of weeks. A number of charitable organizations to which they contribute regularly to have been invited to attend. An associate of mine shall be there as well. Quite the networking opportunity.”

“Sounds it,” said Reyes. “If these friends at Lijang bother to show up.”

“They will,” said Gérard. “Of that, my contact seems reasonably sure.”  

“And just who is this contact?”

They were interrupted by the sharp snap of a woman’s heels on the hardwood floor. “Ugh, Gérard! I should have known this is what has been keeping you.”

The woman who marched up to them wore a white dress and a formidable stare, her hair twisted up in a tight black braid. It presently swung behind her like a lash. Her lively eyes were full of annoyance, her lips pursed in genuine irritation.  The effect on the omnic was instant. He turned at once, arms extended in an offered embrace.

“Ah, Amélie! My little cabbage,” said Gérard, the light in his censors dancing with true adoration. “It is wonderful to see you. How you light up any room with your glorious step--”

For a moment, the woman bent as though to return the gesture, then she stopped short and looked away, arms folded in front of herself. “Do not ‘little cabbage’ me. I have been waiting for you in the cafe. You said it would only be a little bit, and here I find you have replaced me--with another brunette with good legs, no less.”

“Replaced you,” said Gérard. “My dear, who could ever match your beauty, your grace -- no offense, Gabriel.”

“Didn’t know you double-booked me,” said Reyes, blandly.

“Ah, not you too!” cried Gérard, quite harassed. “To be scorned by my dear friend, along with my dear wife! The world is too cruel sometimes.”

“Oh, who has abandoned you,” snapped Amélie, but when she glanced at Reyes her eyes lit up in wicked enjoyment.  “Good morning. Has he been on about the painting yet?”

“About ten minutes ago,” reported Reyes.

“Then I am not interrupting anything,” said Amélie, ignoring her husband as he gestured furtively for her hand. “Have you had a good trip?”

“Miserable.”

“That is a shame. I heard there had been storms over Gibraltar.”

“If by storms you mean military operations, sure.”

“Not too turbulent I hope.”

“Been through worse.”

“Will you be staying long?

“Due out again this afternoon.”

“I see,” said Amélie. “Then I will not keep you. Return my husband, please, and get the hell out out.”

“Or stay,” said Gérard. “Join us for lunch. Drink with us. Leave tomorrow instead. Amélie has a performance tonight. You must see it. She is a magnificent dancer--”

“He wants to stare at you while you eat,” added Amélie.

“I’ll pass.” Reyes tucked up his collar and turned to leave. “I’ll be back in two weeks anyway. We’ll talk more.”

“I suppose that shall do,” said the omnic, mournfully.

“Thank you,” added the omnic’s wife.

“Break a leg,” said Reyes. He left the gallery, waving noncommittally as he went. He didn’t question Amélie’s timing. He didn’t question the fact he’d seen her shadow in the gallery entrance, nearly from the start of the conversation -- he just filed it away for later analysis, like the flash drive in his pocket. He bought a coffee from the cafe on the ground floor. Crowds aside, the cafe at the Louvre could be pretty good.

 

Amélie Lacroix followed the agent with her eyes until he had gone. When she was sure he had left the gallery she turned and grasped her husband’s hand.

“So he is interested, then?” she asked. “In our little party.”

Her husband’s metal hand flexed, gently. Warm metal squeezed her fingers. A great comfort.

“How could he not be?” said Gérard, turning back to his painting. “Gabriel Reyes has been fighting for far longer than me.”

“Against people like you.”

“And now, against people like him,” said Gérard. “It has become a different war. An especially unpleasant one, at that.  But one in which man like him and a man like me can find ourselves on the same side.”

Amélie’s lips twisted in something like amusement. “Oh, yes. Common enemies are so nice like that, aren’t they?”

The stood together in front of his favorite painting. By then the room had filled up with visitors. If anyone looked at them, it was not for anything they said. Who would notice much beyond what an odd pair they were: a gaunt dancer and the well-dressed omnic.

Gérard looked back up at her. His sensors flashed a deeper color, an indication of concern.

“In some ways I might agree,” he said, squeezing her hand again. “Do I ask too much of you, my dear ballerina?”

His wife laughed, a deep daring rumble in her chest.

“My tin soldier,” answered Amélie. “You ask nothing of me that I have not already chosen to do on my own accord. Is that not what you love most? Freedom of choice? Freedom to come here every day and stare at the same painting for five hours without letting me know you will be late back?”

“I love it very much, yes,” said Gérard, “and one other thing, as well.”

“You are so full of shit,” said Amélie, but she stayed with him until at last the crowds grew too distasteful.  They left the museum arm and arm -- much to the guard’s general relief.


	2. Égalité

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amélie Lacroix has a very active set of hobbies...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omnic Gérard now has fanart! https://twitter.com/fia_bobia/status/770429641895141376

Amélie Lacroix waited for her husband in a sushi restaurant on Rue Delphine. The restaurant was filling up quickly. It was a small, out of the way establishment. It hadn’t always been a popular restaurant in Paris, but after the war it had been one of the first restaurants to offer a secondary menu for omnics. More amazingly, it employed omnics, and fairly, offering wages for their services. As such, it had become a place of great controversy. As such, every university student in the city now came there for lunch, and the conservatives looking for outrage came for dinner. Amélie arrived some time in between and waited for about a half hour before finally losing her patience. One of the omnic waiters noticed her irritation and came to check on her. 

“More wine?” he asked, hopefully. Behind him, the television screen buzzed: some news item about the recent anti-Watch protests.

He had a basic service faceplate, sensors arranged to resemble a smiling face. It gave the man a boyish charm. He tipped his head with a particular smart click, obviously hoping to win some of her favor, but Amélie had to admit it wasn’t entirely too her taste.

“A menu, please,” said Amélie, hoping to forestall any silly shows of sympathy. He fetched it for her. She laid it out on the table, produced her phone, and called her husband.

“Ah, Gérard,” she said, to Gérard’s messaging application. “You are too kind. I didn’t know how my heart ached for you, until I saw you at this exact moment -- is what I might say, if you hadn’t abandoned me again.”

She gestured to a set of rolls on the menu. The waiter nodded and left. At the table across from her, a group of laughing students squeezed in, filling the last available seats. A tourist couple near the window were watching the waiter in a mix of wariness and surprise. The only empty chair left in the whole establishment was the seat across from her. She glared, and continued:

“I hope saving the world will keep the warm for you, because, if you are not here in another ten minutes, I might run off with this waiter who’s looking for a chance to chat me up.”

The waiter checked in on the students. Three boys and a girl. She watched the line of his joints as he bent to take their orders with a feigned smoldering consideration. He couldn’t see it, but she knew Gérard could just could  _ hear it  _ in her voice. The bell rang. The television moved on to interviews with leading experts in global politics The host said his good evenings. Amélie glanced hopefully towards the door -- but it was simply man in a puffy coat, asking why they didn’t have his reservation.

“But barring that, I’ll just eat without you,” she said, as this new patron began to argue with the host. “It’s very good here. I’m going to order eel AND fatty tuna. I promise you, it will taste amazing. I’ll use the sweet soy sauce and I’ll make a lot of noises, too.”

The waiter paused as he took the students’ orders. The television flickered and shut off. The automatic door shut and locked. This was the only warning, as the man arguing about his table reached into his coat…

And produced nothing but a battered old phrasebook. It was one of the students who pulled a small pulse rifle out of his coat.

The table fell over. The students put on masks. One of the boys threw a knapsack full of smoke bombs into the center of the room, while the second boy seized the waiter by his wrist and pulled him close. He set the pulse rifle against the omnic’s connectors. The girl held the phone up to his sensors. Amélie dropped under the smoke. Even through the choking mist, Amélie could make out the light from the screen. A hijacking program. They’d hoped initiate a remote log in to the omnic’s operating system. They meant to take over his mind.

“Thanks for your service,” said the student, with a sneer.

“Thank you for standing so close to me,” said the waiter. His sensors flicked from blue to red.

“Is… it supposed to do that?” asked the student holding the pulse pistol.

“Um,” said his associate.

Amélie braced her foot on the chair opposite of her and gave it a shove. It struck the girl in the back of her leg. As the girl folded onto her knee, three things happened at the same time: she dropped her phone, the pulse pistol discharged, and the waiter swiveled sideways at the waist in a way not strictly human-- a bright blue field flickered alive around him.

At this point, three things happened in response: the girl reached for her phone, the student with the gun stumbled back from the recoil, and the second boy panicked, running for the door.

“What the--” said the armed student, reeling from the gun’s recoil -- around the same time the blue field pooled in the palm of the omnic’s hand. The omnic pushed this field into the student’s stomach. The boy gasped and collapsed, shaking down to his fingertips. A moment later, all the windows of the restaurant shattered. The escaping student froze, distracted by the glittering blue field that appeared in place of the falling glass  -- but the field he really should have noticed was behind him. The omnic’s hand touched the back of his shoulder, and in another moment he fell as well.

The girl didn’t get very far. Amélie shoved herself along the floor, hooking the student’s feet with a long sweep of her leg. Amélie sprung onto her back, ripping the mask from her face. That was enough to send the girl onto her side, gagging. Amélie tied the mask around her own face instead. She’d gotten tired of holding her breath.

“Ugh. Amateur,” said Amélie, crushing the phone with her heel. A field of wheezing customers and subdued terrorists lay between her and the entrance, but the smoke was beginning to filter out the broken window. She could make out the silhouette of the omnic in the flashing lights of the arriving response unit. He stood over the terrorist by the door, one leg resting behind the other in perfect poise.  The glowing light in his palms snapped off.

“Gérard,” she called. “You were hit.”

The omnic turned. The false faceplate, with its inoffensive smiling face, fell to the ground, bent from the impact of the pistol’s glancing discharge. Beneath, his own face plate remained undamaged, save a light scuff along the side seam. The seven red sensors focused on her, bright and smiling through the murk.

He did look so very dapper in the waiter’s outfit.

“My dearest, you must forgive me,” he said. “I’d hoped that they would at least allow you time for the first course...”

“Don’t be lewd,” said Amélie, as their backup came streaming through the doors.

  
Overwatch took the three would-be terrorists into custody. They took the restaurant patrons in for medical treatment and interviews. Gérard instructed intelligence operatives to comb the premises for evidence. He had them collect the smoke bomb and the gas masks, along with the shattered remains of the phone. He sent messages to Strike Commander Morrison, another to Executive Director Liao, and a third to Captain Reyes, to let him know he was not forgotten in all this mess.

“Will they be able to salvage anything from it?” asked Amélie. She handed the mask she’d stolen to the nearest agent.

“Likely not,” said Gérard, directing them to remove the television screen from its port. “But it is worth the endeavor. I do wish we could find their programmer. That hijacking application was one of the most complicated pieces they’ve ever managed. Framing an omnic for murder would be quite the accomplishment for them, wouldn’t it?”

“I am glad it is in pieces,” said Amélie, with real feeling. “Did it get to you, Gérard?”

“I could feel the program attempting to access all my core functions at once,” admitted Gérard, “but Pallas blocked it immediately -- and thank you for that, my friend!”

“You are welcome, Agent Lacroix,” answered a mechanical voice from a band around his wrist. Pallas was Overwatch’s rudimentary security program, one of the pet projects of their technology specialists, particularly that of a young recluse by the name of Dr. Winston. The man knew his stuff. The program was growing more responsive every day.

“It managed to get in,” said Amélie, frowning.

“It tried,” said Gérard, tapping the side of his head with a flourish. “It failed.”

“Nevertheless,” said Amélie, “that is too much for my liking. You know, I--”

He placed his palm on her cheek. It was the omnic version of a kiss. The agents who knew this rolled their eyes and looked away. Amélie placed her hand over his. A moment later her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. She checked it, not breaking contact with his hand.

‘I know the position I’ve placed you in,’ said the text. ‘You needn’t compromise it any more than you already have.’

‘Perhaps I would like to,’ typed Amélie. Amélie fell against him, as though overwhelmed by the proceedings, so that no one could watch her as she typed.  The agents gave them a wide berth. She glanced at them in the reflection of her husband’s plating. ‘What is it that you always say about choice?’

‘To choose once is a miracle. To choose again, a gift. To choose a thousand times over is a fine life indeed,’ answered Gérard. ‘And I would choose you a thousand times over, and more.’

‘You make my job so difficult,’ answered Amélie.

Outloud, she said, “But must you be quite  _ so  _ reckless? You were right, that outfit does look very good on you, but, really, Gérard must you be quite the hero?  _ Every  _ time?”

“You inspire me,” said Gérard.

“And you are full of it!” sighed Amélie. She pressed her lips to the sensor in the center of his forehead, so he could take their exact temperature and pressure specifications. As most of the Overwatch agents were human, they understood this gesture very well. 

“ _ Every _ time,” one of them muttered.

‘The event planners are holding a conference,’ texted Amélie. ‘I will be there.’

“When we are done here,” she said, “take me to dessert. I know a little place around the corner from here. They set the crêpes on fire. They will probably have to kick us out.”

“My dearest,” said Gérard, “I support this plan entirely.”

  
That evening, Amélie considered her husband as he rested in power-down mode, his sensors dimmed as his body and core recharged. Contrary to the old world beliefs about robots, omnics were warm, with an internal cooling system that vibrated beneath their casing at regular interviews. In the normal way, Amélie might have rested a pillow on Gérard’s lap so that she might let those vibrations lull her to sleep, but she had made a promise that night and intended to keep it.

To that end, Amélie Lacroix bound back her hair, buttoned her blazer, and slipped out into the night.

It was late, but not so late that there weren’t plenty of people milling about close to the river: drunks and young people and tourists. She caught the metro at the Isles de Citie and headed north.  Here, old Paris slipped away and the corporate buildings rose high and flourescent into the clouds.

The streets were quieter in the north. Most of the business men and women had gone home or back to their hotels. Amélie stopped in front of a nondescript building emblazoned by the logo of a well-known European credit union. Most of the office lights were off -- save one or two on the fourth or fifth floors.  

The front doors were locked. A tired security guard watched them, but that was no matter. Amélie walked around the back, located a convenient fire escape, swung herself up, and scaled the building until she found a fourth floor window that was somehow always set ajar. She swung through feet first, landing lightly in a crouch.

The window let into a dark office filled with empty desks and travel posters. Carefully, quietly, Amélie walked along those rows until she found an office in the back. A carefully applied swipe with her cellphone opened it right up. She walked in, sat at the desk, plugged a drive into the computer, and logged in.

She’d just opened up the scheduling program when the office lights came on.

“Oh, good,” said Amélie, without looking up. “You came. Those agents tonight were absolute crap, but our technology is secure. Nevertheless, we will have to change our date and location for the benefit. The current one is no good. Lacroix has figured out where we will be holding it.”

“I know,” said the man in the door, “seeing as you’re the one who told him.”

Amélie stopped typing.  She raised her eyes. The man in the door smiled. He had a boyish face and dark, intelligent eyes. Eyes that had, that evening, been all over the news. He stepped into the room. He shut the door behind him.  It locked: a final sort of click.

“Hi, Amélie,” said Liao, senior trustee of the Lijang Foundation and, coincidently, Overwatch’s Executive Director. “Let’s talk.”


	3. Liberté

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gérard Lacroix faces off with Talon.

They found her in Annecy, a city on a lake. Before the Crisis, it had been a charming alpine location, well-shadowed by the Alps, and a fine destination for skiers. After the Crisis, the lake had risen, and the old city sat half submerged beneath those crystal mountain waters. It’d been of no matter to the locales -- they built a new city over it, filled with balcony restaurants and overhanging gardens. Gérard Lacroix, at present, sat in one of these gardens. It belonged to a hotel, which had been abandoned some five hours ago. The omnic sat at the edge of this vantage point, shielded from view by a fence laced with hanging ivy. He blew steam through his hollow cigarette. Every now and again, his forward sensors picked up movement from the restaurant across the channel, and from the rooftops adjacent. Every now and again, his ancillary sensors picked up data from the communication channels currently screaming with with agents confirming their positions.

Strike Commander Morrison and Captain Amari were having an argument in their private link.  They didn’t know Gérard could listen in on it. They didn’t know he could access any Overwatch communication channel available. Spies had to keep some secrets after all.

“I’m saying hold position,” said the commander.

“And I’m saying I’ve got a visual,” answered the captain.

“We don’t know what he’s got set up down there.”

“And we don’t know at what point he’s going to lose his patience, I’m sure losing _mine--_!”

“Captain. Hold. Position.”

“Give me the order.”

“I’m giving you an order.”

“Give me a different order.”

“I know she’s your friend, but--”

“Don’t give me _that_. Give me the _order_.”

A third voice broke through on a different channel, private to Gérard and Gérard only:

“Best and brightest,” said Reyes, who’d been listening in as well. Blackwatch had their secrets, too. “They’ll be at it for awhile.”

Gérard tilted his head upwards, but despite the low conspiratorial whisper in that voice, Gérard was physically quite alone.

“Hello, my friend,” said the omnic. He sent his reply silently, so as not to give away his position. “Where are you in all this mess?”

“Waiting on clean up. What else is new?”

“They work you much too hard.”

“Don’t have anyone else for it.”

“Poor management,” said Gérard. “You should unionize. It would get you better hours.”  
  
“Yeah, I’d love to see Morrison’s face when I float that.” Laughter over the feed, deep and bitter. Then, more seriously. “You’re taking this well.”

Gérard blew another circle though his cigarette, then held the tube aloft, balanced between his forefinger and thumb.

“It is a funny thing about having preset vocal settings,” said Gérard, in a blank voice, “it makes it very easy to turn off your inflection.”

“Heh. That what make you tin cans so good at what you do? Fear and anxiety’s just got an off switch?”

“Oh, no. Not at all,” said Gérard. “In fact, in times like these, I find I need those things more than ever.”

Silence. Movement in the trees below. Gérard focused his forward sensors ahead, down across the canal, to the windows of the restaurant.

After a little bit, Reyes said: “Your contact.”

“Yes,” said Gérard, confirming what he didn’t quite ask.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I do not, as you might say, ‘fuck around,’ Gabriel.”

A whistle, over the link. “You sure you haven’t turned that setting off?”

“No, but I see you might like to,” said Gérard. “Be at ease. I will keep my promise to you.”

Life on the comm link. Commander Morrison’s brisk voice came through, tight and professional.

“Lacroix,” he said. “They’ve contacted us. They want to speak with you. Keep them on the line as long as you can. We need to work out how to take out their defenses.”

And Commander Morrison needed to convince Captain Amari to not simply go for a kill shot, but that he left quite unsaid. Gérard tucked his cigarette into his coat. He felt the soft ‘ping’ of the terrorist’s communication signal, patched through by Overwatch’s administrators.

“Please do not be concerned,” said Pallas, more quietly than Morrison. “I will protect you from any illegal accesses.”

“I thank you both,” said Gérard. “Please put me through.”

  
  
In the evacuated restaurant across the canal, Amélie Lacroix sat at the corner table. Her captor sat across from her: a tall, thin man with a loping look, much like an American greyhound. A gun rested on his lap. A bomb rested under the table.

Every now and again, her captor fiddled with his phone, checking the location of his armaments and the location of the strike team closing in on him. They were at the center of an elaborate set of defenses. She’d watched him set it all up. She’d watched him shove the body of the restaurant’s manager out the window. Enemy guns rattled, then went embarrassingly quiet. The man had paced from one corner of the restaurant to the other and, so satisfied with his set up, returned to his spot across from her. He had not bothered to keep her tied up, but tipped the gun meaningfully in her direction.

Most men and women might have found such company alarming. Amélie Lacroix leaned back in her chair and sighed.

“Can I check my email?” she asked.

“For fuck’s sake, Amélie,” said her captor. “Take this seriously.”

“Oh, can they hear us?” asked Amélie. “My, Jean-Baptiste, I would have thought you’d use some kind of sound dampener.”

“Of course I used a dampener,” snarled Jean-Baptiste. “What do you take me for?”

“An idiot,” said Amélie, “if you think this will work.”

“If you think I have to take any advice from a traitor,” said Jean-Baptiste, “you can fuck right off. Maybe I need to be a bit more convincing. Maybe I should break your jaw.”

“And make it harder for them to confirm my identity when you call them? By all means.”

Jean-Baptiste swore and went back to checking his armaments. He might have been fond of gadgets, but he was an awful conversationalist. Nevertheless, they’d gone through training together, and she’d annoyed him sufficiently to earn a response: after a few minutes he came back with an ugly expression.

“You know,” he said, “last I checked, we were ordered to keep tabs on the machine, not _marry_ it.”

“You are asking about legality now?" asked Amélie, quite amazed. Jean-Baptiste rolled his eyes. “One must be able to adapt to their circumstance, and maintain one’s cover. Did you miss that lesson?”

 _“I_ didn’t fuck a coffee machine,” said Jean-Baptiste. “How does that even _work_? Can it even...”

He made a rude gesture. Amélie raised an eyebrow.

“If you must be crass,” said Amélie, “so be it. He’s more capable than you, I imagine. He's quite considerate. And meticulous."

"What the hell.”

"And he never tires."

"Fine, fine, I get it."

"Sometimes, we dance for hours..."

“That’s disgusting.”

“You asked.”

“I didn’t need the play by play, fuck!” sputtered Jean-Baptiste. “Not that it matters. It’ll be scrap soon, anyway.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I have five turrets and an EMP bomb ready to go the moment it steps anywhere near this restaurant,” said her captor, “and I have its fleshlight, apparently. We’ll scrap it, take what we need, and then we’ll decide what to do with you. So maybe be a bit more polite. I could put in a word for you.”

“You _do_ underestimate his functionality,” sighed Amélie. “Just call him, would you? I’m getting tired of this.”

“Fuck off and die, Amélie,” said Jean-Baptiste. He was such a boring person, but he picked up his phone and dialed out.

  
  
The terrorist was predictably rude.

“Good morning, my action figure,” said Talon agent. He had a scratchy, unpleasant voice. He obviously hadn’t slept in several days. “How nice of your masters to program you to speak with me!”

“And how nice of yours to do the same,” answered Gérard, taking some mild satisfaction at the hiss on the other end. “Unfortunately, I’ve no interest in drawing this out any longer. May I speak with my wife?”

“What a cute thing to say,” said the terrorist. “What if she is in no condition to speak?”

Gérard cut the communication. On the private channel, both Captain Amari and Commander Morrison exploded with alarm.

A half a minute later, he received another message. Same source. Gérard let it through.

“My tin soldier,” said Amélie. “You kept me waiting again.”

Much more like it. Gérard picked himself up from his seat on the balcony.

“My ballerina,” he said. “It’s good to hear you.”

“Keep him talking,” said Morrison, over the private feed. It would give Captain Amari time to locate and send him the position of the armaments.

 

“Keep him talking,” mouthed Jean-Baptiste. It would give him time to locate the omnic on the roofs.

Amélie raised a finger to silence him.

“I wish you would hurry up,” she said. “You have left me to such wretched company. This man is an unspeakable louse, and he smells dreadful.”

Jean-Baptiste glared but said nothing, calibrating his gun. His phone gave a knowing ping.

“Has he harmed you?” asked Gérard.

“Not yet, my dear, though he would quite like to.”

“Have you harmed him?” asked Gérard.

“No, though I would very much like to,” said Amélie. Jean-Baptiste made a nasty gesture in response to that. The EMP bomb began its initialization process. “Such ugly things you suspect of me.”

“Ugly? You? Never. I love watching you move,” said Gérard. “It reminds me of when we first met. You were magnificent. I came to see you every night.”

She remembered, of course. The show performed by the dance academy in her last year, and the strange omnic that kept buying seats in the front row balcony. Everyone wondered why he wasn’t an usher. Everyone had believed then that omnics didn’t do things for leisure.

“I was in the chorus, you teapot,” she said. “I’d hardly call that performance my best.”

Gérard would not be dissuaded.

“But your movements were so precise,” said Gérard, as excitedly as he’d said it the first time he spoke to her -- at stage door, with flowers, on the last night of the performance. In the present, Captain Amari located the first turret in a flower pot and forwarded him the information. He did a quick calculation. “You didn’t give anything that wasn’t necessary.”

He raised his palm and threw a field. It stuck just a few inches above the pot.

“My instructors always said I didn’t give enough,” mused Amélie.

“Then your instructors should be fired,” said Gérard, with brutal adoration. They found the second turret hidden in the archway of the opposite building. He stuck one field above it. He stuck another field on the building opposite. “Efficiency has its own beauty.”

“Spoken like a machine,” said Amélie. His sensors shined in pleasure at the compliment. He peered through the restaurant walls, making out the rapid beating of her heart, and the more rapid beating of her captor’s heart -- and the third and fourth turrets, planted in the corners of the main dining area. “But that doesn’t explain what you were doing there the first night. Coppelia’s hardly to your tastes.”

Morrison chimed in on the private feed: “That’s all of them, but he’s got something set up under the tables.”

“Oh, the themes are dreadful,” Gérard agreed, as though he hadn’t heard the commander at all. He dropped a field directly beneath him. “The doll fails to find sentience and the human woman surpasses her in all ways. The program director must have truly hated omnics to choose that one.”

 

In the restaurant, Jean-Baptiste smirked at his phone. “I see him.”

“He did,” said Amélie, ignoring her captor’s confused stare. “Japan had just debuted its first omnic dance troupe. Their tours outsold us.”

“Reactionary politics at its finest,” laughed Gérard.

“So why encourage it?”

“Because I thought it might annoy them to see me there. Did it?”

Amélie remembered the director’s face on opening night. “More and more each night.”

 

“Perfect.” Gérard opened his arms and stepped off the edge of the building.

“Lacroix,” said Morrison, but he was a second too late. The omnic dropped a storey, bounced off of his field, leapt across the channel, and landed just short of the turrets range.

 

Jean-Baptiste snatched the phone from Amélie’s hand. “Enough,” he said. “Give us what we want.”

 

“That was a private conversation,” said Gérard, fixing his coat, “and what was that again?”

“Your core processor,” said Jean-Baptiste. “Your memory files of everything you know about us. Every fucking thing you know. Everything you think you know.”

He shoved his gun under Amélie’s jaw. He did it hard enough her head jerked to the side. She winced as he leaned over her.

“My god, Jean-Baptiste,” she hissed. “When was the last time you brushed your teeth--”

He jammed the muzzle harder into her jaw.  
  
“Or I take hers,” added Jean-Baptiste, not without some relish.

“So that is Talon’s proposal?” asked Gérard, over the channel. “My life for hers?”

“Hah. If what you have can be considered a life,” said Jean-Baptiste. “Sure. Why not.”

He gave the EMP bomb under the table a kick. It began to glow. The top panel separated from the bottom, spinning once clockwise, and twice counter-clockwise.

 

“Warning,” said Pallas, in Gérard’s ancillary sensors. “Unknown signature.”

 

“Lacroix,” said Morrison. Pallas sent them the info: EMP bomb. Anti-omnic tech. “Pull back.”

 

“Jack,” said Captain Amari. “Let me take the shot.”

 

Gérard cut his connection to their channel. It was making far too much noise.  
  
“That is a simple enough of choice,” he said. “Let’s meet to discuss it further.”

 

As Gérard stepped towards the restaurant, three things happened at once:  
  
1) The turret by the flowerpot opened fire.

2) Jean-Baptiste triggered the EMP bomb.

3) Gérard activated his personal field.

 

After that, three things happened in sequence:

1) The shot from the flowerpot rebounded. First, off of Gérard’s shield. Then, off of the field he’d planted by the pot. After that, it hit the field across from the archway, which triggered the second turret, which rebounded, flew through the window of the restaurant, hit the third turret and activated the fourth. The fourth attempted to answer the second, when

2) Gérard inserted himself between this shot and the window, allowing it to bounce off of his shielded head, angled in such a way that it buried itself -- completely, perfectly -- into the exposed circuitry of the spinning bomb. The damaged bomb sparked and off-balanced, rolling over onto Jean-Baptiste’s foot, distracting him, as

3) Amélie managed to shove her fingers between Jean-Baptiste’s fingers and his trigger, wrenching the gun out from against her neck. He resisted viciously. She had no hope of fully disarming him in time. So she settled for pulling him close so that they were nearly face to face, so that she could see him as she dug her nails into his wrist.

“Idiot,” she snarled, before she off-balanced her chair, tipping herself backwards, and tipping the terrorist forward.

And straight into Ana Amari’s shot.


	4. Ou la mort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Gérard was a fool to love someone like you."
> 
> "You don't know anything about him."

The terrorist’s blood soaked through Amélie’s dress. They brought her a new one. She showed no signs of rough treatment, beyond the bruises on her neck from the gun. She suffered from mild dehydration and a sprained wrist.

As for her time with Talon, there wasn’t much to report.  
  
Did she recognize any of the places they held her? No. They had kept her blindfolded.

Could she identify anything by sound? No. Nothing but franchise hotels on main drives. She could hear nothing but normal traffic noises. No unique identifiers at all.

Could she identify the voices of her captors? No one but Jean-Baptiste, and he was dead now, so that was pointless.

She passed the psych exams. She passed the medical exams. She passed them several times.

“I had not expected it to be so boring,” said Amélie. “So many hours of silence and nothing. I forgot the days.”

“Listen to you!” said Ana Amari, with a bitter-but-trying laugh. She didn’t quite thump Amélie on the shoulder, but looked as though she’d very much like to. She’d conducted most of the interviews herself. Not surprising -- according to Gérard, she had a daughter close to Amélie in age that she barely saw anymore. “Now you sound like a veteran. They do that on purpose, you understand. They were hoping to break your spirit, but they did not know who they were dealing with!”

“No,” said Amélie, “I suppose not. I’m sorry you could not catch that man alive.”

As Ana’s smile faded, Amélie found she almost meant her apology. She could see the outline of the cybernetic scope faintly in the captain’s iris, whirring faintly in memory, but Ana raised a finger before Amélie could say anything further.

“Another notch on my rifle,” said Ana, distantly. “It is regrettable, but no matter. Your safety was the priority. Whatever we might have learned from that man would be nothing if it came at the cost of your life.”

“Would the UN advisory board agree with you?”

The scope spiralled open, just a touch. Ana Amari shook her head like a lion and scoffed.

“Maybe not, but the advisory board can go to hell,” said Ana, “and I would be happy to put that in writing if Jack would let me!”

“You are much too kind,” said Amélie. This, she meant. With all her heart. “How do you do what you do?”

“A good question,” said Ana, but at that point, a group of medical officers arrived to do another exam, and absolved Ana of the need to answer it.

 

  
Afterwards, they took a trip to Marseilles. It wasn’t entirely by choice. Overwatch imposed a temporary medical leave for operatives injured in action, and Amélie supposed her situation counted. The train ride was quiet, the green-gold countryside and farms rolling by at remarkable speed. They weren’t on the train terribly long -- less than an hour -- but it was nice to travel by day again.

“Are you well?” asked Gérard, as they pulled into the station.

“Well enough,” answered Amélie.

Marseilles was where they had spent their honeymoon. They rented a room in the same hotel: a squat orange and white boutique on the coast.They ate dinner at the hotel’s expensive cafe, on a platform that thrust out over the sea. The water roared beneath them. Amélie took great care with every bite, and described the flavors to Gérard in detail, much to his general delight, as the sun set and they watched a ship crawl into the harbor.

“I always meant to ask,” said Amélie, “why Marseilles?”

“Because it was a city of immigrants,” said Gérard, “and am I not one, myself?”

“A pretty thought,” agreed Amélie, “but isn’t it just because you like to watch the boats?”

“They are fine,” Gérard agreed, as though he hadn’t minutes before been listing their specs to her in excited accuracy born of being able to access the internet directly with his mind, “but who can watch those for long, in such company?”

“Compare me to a lighthouse and I’ll leave you.”

“My love I would never!” said Gérard, aghast. “A star would be much more accurate.”

Amélie stood up. This caused much panic from her omnic companion, she let him coax her back into her seat.

“You do think well of me,” said Amélie, as she settled back down, purse in her lap, “don’t you.”

Gérard’s sensors dimmed as he noted the tone in her voice. He held his hand open on the table. After a moment, Amélie placed hers in it. Her fingers left light marks on his casing.

“I came here,” he said, “from Greece, and before that from Russia, deep in the North. You have heard the stories about it, I imagine.”

“Yes,” said Amélie. “The omnium.”

Everyone who grew up after the Crisis had heard tales of the omniums. They loomed like great fairytale strongholds, huge and dark and horrible, though few post-Crisis children had any real idea what any of them looked like.

“My manufacturer,” confirmed Gérard. “It is my understanding that it once filled the heads of men like me with a great deal of noise, but all I can recall is a great silence. It never spoke to me, as I think it must have spoken to those who came before me. One might find that a relief, but to an omnic, who is programmed to wait on the word of their masters, it is a certain type of hell.”

“You miss it, then?” asked Amélie. “The voice?”

“No,” said Gérard, “I feel no loyalty to it at all. What do I owe to a parent who never bothered to know me? What do I owe a nation that never offered me anything but emptiness? No. I much prefer the sound of this harbor. I realized that the day I came here, and I heard the morning bells for the very first time.”

“Hence, Marseilles,” said Amélie. He’d truly answered her question after all. “You are beginning to sound like those omnics in the East.”

“The ones who live in the mountains and debate endlessly amongst themselves and don’t bother with food or sex or anything fun? Never, my love, never!” Gérard’s sensors flashed impishly. “Besides, I am a bit too war-like for their liking. I am, at my core, a soldier, and one who has _chosen_ my cause, no less. No, my dearest, I cannot imagine they would much approve of me at all. I like to fight for what I love. I like it very much.”

By then the sky had gone a deep blue. The orange light off the harbor reflected in Gérard’s face, and Amélie looked away.

“Now, does it bother you?” he asked. “Knowing what I am?”

“No,” said Amélie. She meant it. “It is nothing I haven’t known about you from the very start.”

“Then know I feel the same,” said Gérard, “and nothing will change that. Besides, I believe there is nothing finer in this world than what is in front of us right now. What need do I have for the Iris?”

“What need,” said Amélie, covering her eyes. “What need indeed.”

  
  
They took a walk by the sea. Afterwards, they returned to their hotel. By then, it was close to midnight, and most of the restaurants and shopfronts were dim.

“All this talk of countries and parental responsibility,” said Amélie, “it means nothing to me, you know. I don’t know owe much to my parents, either. They died in the war.”

“Yes,” said Gérard. “I remember.”

“I grew up in a government facility,” said Amélie.  
  
“Yes.”

“It wasn’t really run by the government.”

“That, too.”

“All along?” Gérard nodded. “Oh, you rat.”

He said nothing. They walked up the two flights to their floor. They walked past the seven doors to their room. As the door shut behind them, Amélie took a breath and set down her purse. She pressed herself against Gérard’s back, memorized the feel of it, and said, “The chairman of the Lijang Foundation is Liao.”

“I see,” said Gérard, “and would this ‘Liao’ be the same one who serves as Overwatch’s executive director?”

“Yes.”

Gérard went as still as a toy. He let revelation hang between them.

“I see,” he said, with no inflection, “and they have allowed you to tell me this.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Because they do not expect anyone else to hear it.”

“Oh, my orders were very clear,” said Amélie. Gérard turned. The gun brushed up against the fabric of his suit, bright and smooth.

“Take your information and go," she said, as she rested the barrel against her own jaw. "Only one of us can leave this room alive."

Gérard watched her. The windows behind him looked out on the ocean. In the distance, lights flashed from the islands chaining the harbor. Gérard reached out and curled his unshielded hand between the barrel and her chin.

“If that is the case,” he said, bringing the gun to his forehead with a knowing clink. “I would like it to be you.”

  
  
A long minute passed where they said nothing. One where Amélie’s eyes lit up with a mix of rage and confusion and grief. Gérard sensors registered the spike in her pulse. The quickening of her breath. Her muscles tensing. He committed it all to memory.

“Don’t give me that shit, Gérard,” she said. “You heard me didn’t you? Your director is siphoning his funds to Talon.”

“That is regrettable.”

“Everything your organization is fighting for is a lie.”

“It seems so,” said Gérard. “Poor Gabriel. It is a shame I won’t be able to tell him he was right.”

“Liao will give them information next,” said Amélie. “Information. Technology. If he hasn’t done it already.”

“You are being very generous with me.”

“Don’t praise me! I’m not working for you. I’ve destroyed Talon technology before you could get at it.”

“The cell phone, yes,” said Gérard. “I assumed as much.”

“And Ana Amari was aiming for that man’s leg,” said Amélie, “I made sure she got him in the head. He was weak. He would have told you everything he knew, if you’d captured him alive. They told me to be convincing.”

“And I imagine you will say next that they gave you the same instructions when you married me? I always wondered if they had approved it, or if you brought them around to it.”

“If you knew for that long,” snarled Amélie, her eyes bright and furious, “why in the world did you _ask_?”

“Because I loved the way you moved,” said Gérard. “So ruthless and perfect.”

Amélie tried to pull her hand away, but he held firm, sensors fixed levelly on the gun. Amélie caught sight of the dimmed band around his wrist.

“Pallas,” said Amélie, tugging desperately. “Call for backup. A Talon operative has an agent cornered, and he is about to die.”

No answer.

“I’ve shut her out,” said Gérard. “She knows I like my privacy.”  
  
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Gérard,” said Amélie, “just be a hero, would you?”

“As you wish,” said Gérard, who duly remained where he was.

“Aren’t you programmed to survive?!”

“I am,” confirmed Gérard, “but the choice is mine. Will you let me make it?”

“Enough--!” Amélie gave up trying to force herself backwards. She threw herself forward instead, slamming into him bodily. It was like throwing herself against a steel wall, but they unbalanced backwards, falling half against the hotel bed. He did not let go of the hand with the gun. Amélie shut her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder.

“To choose a thousand times over is a fine life indeed,” he whispered, close to her ear. So close, his voice hummed in her hair. “And I would choose you a thousand times over and more.”

His free hand bumped up against her cheek. She leaned into it.

“My tin soldier,” she said, softly, kissing those fingers. “Damn you. I never doubted what I was until the day I met you.”

“And what a day it was, my ballerina,” said Gérard, cupping her jaw. He had such warm hands, despite the material they were made from. “Won’t you tell me your code name? I’ve always wanted to know.”

She told him. Gérard laughed. He couldn’t help himself. It was very funny, indeed.

“Ah,” he murmured, “how fitting.”  
  


Gabriel Reyes found Gérard Lacroix in an old hotel in Marseilles. He hated France’s highspeed railways almost as much as he hated the metro, but there was nothing for it. Gérard wasn’t in a position to insist on anything anymore, and it was Reyes’ job to handle the little peculiarities of their organization. Like cover-ups.

“What a view,” said Reyes, staring out the open windows in the harsh orange of dawn. He checked the drawers. He checked the closets. He tapped the walls and all the floorboards, scanning them all for signs of bugs or tampering. “Gotta hand it to him, he picked one hell of a grave.”

“Not the time, Reyes,” snapped Morrison, on the other end of the comm link. “What’s your status?”

“Secure,” said Reyes, kneeling to inspect the body. He’d seen a lot of omnic bodies over the course of his career, and somehow, despite the suit and the neckties, Gérard Lacroix had been rendered little different -- crumpled as he was on the bed, an empty husk devoid of will. The room still smelled like burning wires. Oil soaked through the sheets. What was left of his seven sensors were dim and dark, the central one cracked down the middle. He didn’t even have eyelids to close out of respect. “We’ve evacuated the building. Staff’s in custody. No signs of a struggle. Or Madame Lacroix.”

Bustling sounds on the other end of the comm link. Reyes shut his eyes and waited. Morrison didn’t disappoint. “You think Talon took her back? I can get a team on that. We’ll get tracking them--”

“Hotel staff reports she left the building around 3 a.m.,” said Reyes. “Alone.”

Morrison inhaled sharply.

“Hell,” he said. “That’s not good--”

“It gets better. There’s charge residue in her purse,” said Reyes. In low-burning lights of the setting sun, something bright caught his eye. He knelt next to the dresser, where Gérard’s limp hand hung over the side of the bed. He could still see the smears in the omnic’s finish. Blurred fingerprints. He didn’t have to run a scan to know who they belonged to, but he did it anyway. “Matches a pulse pistol, and no one’s been in the room but her.”

He found a woman’s earring wedged between the bed and the wall. Just one. It was the long, dangling type of earring. A bangle shaped in a web-pattern, with loose segmenting separating it from the hook.

Amélie Lacroix wore studs.

Reyes reached to pull it out, but it was pretty stuck. It broke in his hand, scattering in pieces on the floor.

A thousand miles away, Morrison was still talking, already trying to fill in the blanks.

“...must’ve done something to her. It’s enough that they’ve been trying to hack into omnics, they’re trying it on humans now, too--”

“Yeah,” said Reyes, combing through the remains of the ruined earring. “Must’ve gotten into her head. Because there’s _no way_ she was just a terrorist _all along_.”

He could almost hear Morrison recoil. “That’s an ugly idea.”

“Yeah, we’d sure look stupid if we missed something like that.”

Long silence. Morrison made a low sound, like he’d like to weigh in with his own opinion on the idea. Reyes paused with the remnants of the earring in his palm.

But Morrison just sighed and said, “This again? Look, forget it. Just save it for the report.”

There, glued to the base of the broken hook, Reyes found it: a data card about the size of a small gemstone. Tiny and round, with beaded back, not unlike some kind of insect.

Or an arachnid.

“Sure thing,” drawled Reyes. “ _Commander_. But before you go--”

Morrison hung up on him.

Properly alone, Reyes slipped the remnants of the earring into his coat pocket. He didn’t bring it up when he submitted his report later that night, on the train back out to Switzerland. Reyes ordered wine from the food car. It came in a little plastic cup and tasted terrible, but it was the best he could do on short notice. He’d never cared much for wine anyway. He plugged the chip into his phone and waited for the prompt. Outside, the French countryside bled away.

PASSWORD? Asked the screen.

“Liberty Leading the People,” he typed. “Eugene Delacroix. 1830.”

The data began to scroll.

“Damn, Gérard,” said Reyes, grinning bitterly. “You never did fuck around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! Thank you, everyone who stuck around to the end. I have NO real reason to think Gérard Lacroix was an omnic at all, but after I considered the idea I couldn't let it go. Hence, this story.
> 
> A few things in closing:
> 
> \--Widowmaker's conflicting backstory has always bothered me in Overwatch, this is my attempt to reconcile it and give her maybe a touch more agency. Not sure I succeeded (her backstory is, in fact, a complete mess), but I had fun.
> 
> \--Apologies to Alexandre Dumas (père) for cribbing his style for a fanfic about french robot spies.
> 
> \--Apologies to Liao for completely making up their deal entirely. I actually like the idea of Liao being a lady, but the creators have said the Overwatch cast are like action figures.... so I borrowed a Ling Yao figure from the Fullmetal Alchemist to sub in until we've got a Liao proper. I will probably be completely wrong about them.
> 
> \--Apologies to Gabriel Reyes for whatever canon ultimately decides to do to him. His (un)life sort of sucks.
> 
> \--No apologies to Gérard, though. He had a fine time through and through.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who's curious: Gérard Lacroix is a defense/flanker character meant to be a counter to Torbjorn and Symmetra. Don't tank with him, though. He's got like no HP.


End file.
